Recently I started using Komodo Edit (the free version of Komodo IDE). This is an early review, of having used it for my work for about a week, which isn't really enough to know whether I'll be sticking with it, but it's a good start. I started to get a bit tired of the limitations of TextMate - an editor I like, and paid for, but the v2 which they keep hinting at seems to never be coming, and it has some short-falls which I find very annoying.
ActiveState actually asked me to do a review of Komodo IDE a while ago and I never got around to it, so I never got a free license key from them. Maybe they'll read this ;-)
This review is of using it on my MacBook (non-pro) 2.4Ghz, 4GB Ram.
The Good
========
Generally it has everything I'm looking for:
- all documents in tabs
- mostly the right keystrokes for everything (i.e. it's not VI or Emacs, though I believe it has vi emulation for the die-hards) - I only had to fix Cmd-[ and Cmd-] for indent/deindent.
- open over scp/sftp.
- syntax highlighting seems to just work (haven't found any flaws yet, though Perl can be tricky that way!).
- shows line numbers, folds, etc in a nice way
- autoindent mostly works well
- macros in Javascript/Python make it VERY flexible
- "show current file changes" (before you save) is an AWESOME feature, and loads them into the proper "diff" window
- macros even allow you to access that diff window, so writing some macros to access our version control system (AccuRev - don't ask!) was relatively straightforward for a non-Javascript coder like myself
- macro output looks like it'll be easy enough to write a Prove/Test.pm runner
The Missing
===========
There are always things missing in editors, usually things I've experienced elsewhere that I'd love to see replicated:
- I *love* textmate's ability to re-indent code when I paste it in, at the correct current level.
- I wish open over sftp would allow me to open a whole directory (i.e. treat it like a temporary project)
- I wish I could open a directory instead of have to create a project.
- I wish tabs would double over instead of flow off the side (as an option) as I tend to keep a lot of files open
- I wish the project pane would highlight the current file/tab instead of the last file I double clicked on
- Documentation of the macro stuff is a bit weak, though the forums are good for help on this (I haven't posted, but the search has helped a lot, and most posts seem to get a reply).
The Buggy/Broken Bits
=====================
- There's sometimes an oddness with macros - sometimes I edit them and the edits don't "take" - restarting fixes this.
- Can be a TINY bit slow. I'm on a fast mac, so I suspect this would be much worse on my G4 laptop.
- The find options seem a bit odd to me - there's multiple locations for "find" - in the toolbar and in a separate window, be nice if it were unified and accessible with Cmd-F
- Open over sftp seemed a bit fragile and has hung on me once
Overall though, I like it. I'm not really sure what Komodo IDE could add over and above this, I suspect it'll just come with a lot of cool plugins and macros that do clever things...
I'll maybe post more on this if I keep using it.
If you get a moment, a brief review of Padre would be handy too.
It might not be good enough to live a week using nothing but it yet, but a list of "Get Matts onto Padre" bugs would be a nice one to add to our list.
Re:Padre?
Matts on 2009-06-04T02:46:01
Couldn't get it working on OSX (mostly I think it was the GUI library - Wx). Spent about an hour on it and then gave up.
Komodo has a
.dmg file I just opened and it worked. Re:Padre?
jplindstrom on 2009-06-04T13:01:38
There is an old strawberry installer linked from the the wiki. Is there a more recent one that installs it an all deps easily? (esp the GTK things are a bit tricky IIRC)
Re:Additions of Komodo IDE
Matts on 2009-06-06T11:30:36
Komodo Edit does the second thing there.
I know there's lots of things the IDE adds (there's a comparison table on ActiveState's site), but most of them wouldn't be very useful to me.
